Kayasths, and the Lahuri Sen subcaste of Barais, Banias and other
castes. Illegitimate children in the Kasar (brass-worker) caste form
a subcaste known as Takle or 'thrown out,' Vidur or 'illegitimate,'
or Laondi Bachcha, the issue of a kept wife. In Berar the Mahadeo
Kolis, called after the Mahadeo or Pachmarhi hills, are divided into
the Khas, or 'pure,' and the Akaramase or 'mixed'; this latter word
means gold or silver composed of eleven parts pure metal and one part
alloy. Many subcastes of Bania have subcastes known as Bisa or Dasa,
that is 'Twenty' or 'Ten' groups, the former being of pure descent or
twenty-carat, as it were, and the latter the offspring of remarried
widows or other illicit unions. In the course of some generations
such mixed groups frequently regain full status in the caste.

Subcastes are also formed from members of other castes who have taken
to the occupation of the caste in question and become amalgamated
with it; thus the Korchamars are Koris (weavers) adopted into the
Chamar (tanner) caste; Khatri Chhipas are Khatris who have become
dyers and printers; the small Dangri caste has subcastes called Teli,
Kalar and Kunbi, apparently consisting of members of those castes who
have become Dangris; the Baman Darzis or tailors will not take food
from any one except Brahmans and may perhaps be derived from them,
and the Kaith Darzis may be Kayasths; and so on.

Occasionally subcastes may be formed from differences of religious
belief or sectarian practice. In northern India even such leading Hindu
castes as Rajputs and Jats have large Muhammadan branches, who as a
rule do not intermarry with Hindus. The ordinary Hindu sects seldom,
however, operate as a bar to marriage, Hinduism being tolerant of
all forms of religious belief. Those Chamars of Chhattisgarh who have
embraced the doctrines of the Satnami reforming sect form a separate
endogamous subcaste, and sometimes the members of the Kabirpanthi
sect within a caste marry among themselves.

Statistics of the subcastes are not available, but their numbers are
very extensive in proportion to the population, and even in the same
subcaste the members living within a comparatively small local area
often marry among themselves and attend exclusively at their own
caste feasts, though in the case of educated and well-to-do Hindus
the construction of railways has modified this rule and connections
are kept up between distant groups of relatives. Clearly